An unexpected $30 million budget boost from the state legislature was intended to brake, if not halt, tuition hikes at Colorado colleges and universities.

But the University of Colorado and Colorado State University are nevertheless contemplating 2013-14 budget proposals that managers say will require a 9 percent tuition increase to meet.

While months away from any final decisions, the universities, balancing a series of state-mandated cost increases as well as their own required expenses and hoped-for initiatives, say that while the extra state funding — about $15 million between the two schools — is welcome, it isn't enough to cover the cost of doing business.

"I'm guessing that without (the increased funding), we'd be talking about a double-digit increase," said Lynn Johnson, CSU's chief financial officer.

CSU raised its tuition rates by 9 percent before the current academic year.

Last year at this time, CU had proposed hikes of as much as 15 percent on its Boulder campus before deciding on a 5 percent increase. Since a 19 percent increase in 2007-08, CU tuition increases have hovered around 8.5 percent to 9.5 percent.

Johnson says she understands the idea of families bemoaning yet another tuition increase — she has one child in college and another headed there next year.

Advertisement

"You're thinking you want your children to have a college education," she said, "but it's hard to stop and think about the quality of the institution they're going to and what the value of that education will be when they're done."

Schools try to tap alternative revenue streams, such as partnerships with private businesses or luring more out-of-state and international students, who often pay more than double the tariff of local students. But more often than not, they come back to tuition to generate the income necessary to provide that quality.

"We don't control what the state gives us, or other revenue that might be out there, like interest income," Johnson said. "As (CSU president Tony Frank) says, unfortunately, tuition is one of the dials we can turn."

At CSU, the idea of raising tuition began last fall, when school officials began formulating a skeletal budget. That included input from Frank, Chancellor Michael Martin, the provost, the Board of Governors and the student government.

Along the way, there are commitments — such as hiring counselors as part of a student-success initiative designed to help students graduate sooner — that will have to be accounted for.

Also, the 2014 state budget includes a 3.6 percent raise and an increase in benefits for some state employees that public institutions such as CSU will have to cover. And Frank has promised a pay raise to faculty and staff.

"It's a case of looking at all the things we need to do, and then, given the expenses we have to cover, where does our tuition need to fall in order to accomplish all the things we need to accomplish?" Johnson said.

She said scenarios were run looking at the revenue gained from tuition increases ranging from 3 percent to 12 percent.

At CU, each of the system's four campuses provided lists of required expenses, such as the Joint Budget Committee-mandated raises as well as increases to the Public Employees' Retirement Association of Colorado plan. At Colorado Springs, almost $100,000 is being allocated to start a women's golf team to comply with federal Title IX regulations.

Each campus also included its own list of strategic initiatives. CU-Boulder, for example, recently announced an Esteemed Scholars Program, an attempt to keep high-caliber high school students in the state. It's a $460,000 line in the 2013-14 budget.

And, like CSU, CU is making a big push to retain faculty. In a presentation at the school's last Board of Regents meeting, officials said the salary gap between Boulder faculty and that at comparable institutions was more than $7,000 a year.

"We educate people, and it takes people to educate people," said Todd Saliman, CU's chief financial officer. "But we have to be able to retain them; every year, we have faculty members who are offered jobs at prestigious institutions across the country for more money.

"It's a very competitive environment, and when you look at how we measure up with our peers when it comes to compensation, we're a bit behind."

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.